


for my soul is given to love of the unknown

by orphan_account



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:02:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25530283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: how do you love a god?
Relationships: Corvo Attano/The Outsider (Dishonored)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 52





	for my soul is given to love of the unknown

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [ибо душа моя любит неведомое](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25675948) by [Efa_de_Foks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Efa_de_Foks/pseuds/Efa_de_Foks)



there’s a square of light at the very top of your cell. you can’t tell, from the distance, if maybe there’s a pane of glass up there, or if it simply breaks into open air. you see the rooftop guards’ shadows pass over the space now and then, and you can hear their laughter; but no wind or rain seems to strike you from above, at least, no harsher than the cold and wet that already infests your cell. you spend a lot of time thinking about climbing up there and seeing if there’s a pane of glass, or maybe a thin little screen of wire, or nothing at all. you think about seeing if maybe you could climb all the way up and through and out.

then you laugh at yourself. climb how? with what? with your bloodied feet and burned hands, scrabbling at these slick walls that are hairsbreadths’ too far apart for your arms to span in entirety? you’d have better luck squeezing between the cell bars like the rats.

it’s pointless to fantasize, though you do anyway—lying on your back in the middle of the cell, because the floor is no harsher than the bed you’re given, and stretching your fingers to the sky until the bones in your hand ache and your wrist starts to cramp. you reach up, uselessly, even when the guards’ laughter turns toward you, and their swords, too, poked through the bars and jabbing into your skin. _get up. get up, you mad fool, you mad damned murderer._

you bear their swords and their words, and still you reach upwards, because it’s what you’ve always done. it’s what you’ll always do. you reach for the things you can’t have and shouldn’t want.

(you loved an empress, once. how much further is it, reaching for a god?)

you don’t reach for him at first, though. you shy away. his hand is outstretched to grasp yours, and it falls back to his side. he brands you still, but it is the air itself that twists around your hands and sears his mark into your skin. it hurts, in the way that all of dunwall is hurting—it feels like you are crumbling from the inside out, rotting like the growing piles of bodies in the flooded district. it is not hurting like pain, but hurting like you are losing pieces of yourself to elements you can barely comprehend.

he watches you crumble with something in his face that you can’t name, and eyes that aren’t there. you meet his gaze; not steadily, no, even the lord protector cannot claim to be so brave. but your eyes seek his, flick away, then back again. he is terrible to look upon, and beautiful.

there are worse things to lose yourself to, you think.

“seek me at my shrines,” he tells you. “seek me in the cracks through which water seeps and in the hollows of men’s hearts. i am in the gardens and marble floors you dream of so often, and the rivers of blood which flow through them. i am of the void, and you are mine, now. you cannot fail to find me in all places where the void belongs. nor can you turn away.”

you shiver. fear and worship twist together on your tongue. in the end you say nothing, but still he hears the words you don’t speak.

he knows you would not turn away from him. he knows you could never want to. the abbey’s halls and the masked men’s forgiveness are not for you, and the mask you wear is not meant to serve penance.

how do you love a god?

you don’t, the overseers snarl. you don’t love him. he only consumes you. lock your doors, let not his influence cast its shadow upon you. blind yourselves in his presence, that your eyes shall not be rotted by his evil. you cannot love him. his kiss would swallow your soul.

how do you love a god?

with understanding, the royal physician whispers. with study. copy with your shaking hands the carvings found upon trees and rocks and skies of pandyssia, carvings that other men died to see and were glad of it. pick apart the fabric of the universe until you know how it built a god. only by knowing him can you have him. only by knowing him can you become his equal. that is how you love him.

how do you love a god?

you fear him. the lord regent does not speak this aloud, but he knows it. you fear him.

(there are many answers, and most all of them are wrong. love is not fear, nor obsession, nor destruction.)

once more: how do you love a god?

you are the lord protector, and you have always reached for things you shouldn’t have. his touch is cool on your skin and your bones turn to ice when he tightens his grip. he releases you, and you fall into the abyss, screams echoing against nothing. until he catches you, once again, and you are upon solid ground. there is no breath against your ear when he puts his mouth to it and says, “well done, corvo.”

this is how you love him:

you look at him and your eyes slide to black, sometimes, losing pieces of yourself to the void, but clinging to humanity by your fingernails. you are not consumed. you stand there, and look, and you do not understand him. you do not know him. and you are not afraid.

you see what you see and you love him like that. you just love him. that is all.

you reach for him. when everything is over, finally, you reach for him. his fingers twine around yours slowly, carefully, like you are something delicate. it should be laughable, the idea of a man half-blood half-steel being treated like fine glasswork, but laughter catches in your throat and hovers there, around the smile you can’t quite chase away. you are already breathless when he pulls you closer and presses soft lips against yours.

his arms slide around to frame your waist and your eyes slip shut. you lean into him, and he isn’t warm but he is solid and real and you love him. but you break away from him, for just a moment, though your body aches at his absence. because you need to tell him.

you tell him you reached for the stars like the fool you are, and they were not so far away as they seemed.

you tell him you love him.

he smiles. tightens his hold around you. and he doesn’t say it back, but he doesn’t need to.

“corvo,” he murmurs. “my dear corvo,” and he kisses you again.

**Author's Note:**

> i had lots of feelings and out came corvosider. pure self-indulgence.


End file.
